


Burnin' Love

by akathecentimetre



Category: Lilo & Stitch (2002), Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-19
Updated: 2015-11-17
Packaged: 2018-03-31 08:22:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 8,378
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3970792
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/akathecentimetre/pseuds/akathecentimetre
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Expecting a Geonosian spy makes finding a six-legged alien with big ears, an overactive mouth (and spit glands) and wearing a truly confusing floral-patterned tunic in the middle of cheerfully noshing on Rex’s head… interesting, to say the least.</p><p>This accidentally turned into a bit of a Thing. Part 1 - Landing at Point Rain ; Part 2 - Finding Obi-Wan ; Part 3 - Finding Cody ; Part 4, Finding Jedi ; Part 5, Finding Rebels ; Part 6, Finding Alderaan; now with Part 7, Finding Vader. Finally, Part 8 - Finding Hope.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Landing at Point Rain

*

The Thing shows up in the middle of the ground assault on Sep positions on Geonosis, of all times, and frankly what with everything else going on Anakin has very little energy to spare on the muttered concern through his commlink about the fact that a UFO has crash-landed behind Republic lines. As long as whatever’s in it doesn’t come out shooting, he’s far more worried about keeping his men alive in the here and now.

It’s only several hours later, when the sun _still_ hasn’t gone down and they’re _still_ mopping up droids around the staging ground and Obi-Wan _still_ hasn’t damn well sat down and allowed his crash wounds to be looked at, that he becomes aware that there’s something…. _scuttling_ , that’s the word for it, around the edges of the camp, and that he’s pretty sure it isn’t friendly.

Expecting a Geonosian spy makes finding a six-legged alien with big ears, an overactive mouth (and spit glands) and wearing a truly confusing floral-patterned tunic in the middle of cheerfully noshing on Rex’s head… interesting, to say the least.

“Get it fucking _off,_ ” Rex is raging, staggering around in a circle with green-tinged saliva flying everywhere. The Thing doesn’t seem to be doing him much harm, strangely, and the troopers awkwardly trying to squeeze off a shot without accidentally hurting their captain aren’t doing any good at all. Mostly because they’re too busy laughing.

It takes Ahsoka all of ten seconds to decide she wants to keep it, which is so far beyond anything Anakin wants right now that he can’t even put it into words. He’s exhausted, and aching all over from more than just bruises, and screw whatever part of the Code which is about not killing when you don’t have to – he’s going to put his lightsaber through the little beast and have done with it.

“A little _help_ ,” Rex squawks again. Which is when Obi-Wan decides to intervene, and everything just gets worse.

“Wait,” he says, putting a hand on Anakin’s wrist to keep him from activating his ‘saber. His former Master has a look of intense interest on his face, and then the Thing finally looks up from where it’s been gnawing on Rex’s breastplate and, with a little coo of savage curiosity, races over to Obi-Wan as though it’s a pet being called home.

Anakin blinks. “Is it Force-sensitive?”

“No,” Obi-Wan says thoughtfully, easing himself down to sit cross-legged. He still doesn’t look or feel quite right, and Anakin’s _really_ going to kill someone if the damned medics from the fleet don’t hurry up. “Empathic, perhaps,” the Master adds, then, as the Thing clambers comfortably up into his lap and sits there glaring at Anakin.

“Stupidhead,” the Thing says clearly in Anakin’s direction, and behind Obi-Wan Cody, who has managed to stay impressively impassive up until this point, finally doubles over and starts fucking _giggling_.

“Me Stitch,” says the Thing, and then promptly ignores everyone else for the next hour in favor of nosing its way around a very amused and suspiciously happy Obi-Wan, scurrying across his shoulders and muttering gibberish in his ears. The troopers get bored eventually and wander off; even Ahsoka eventually gets offended that she can’t get the Thing’s attention and leaves Obi-Wan to it.

Anakin keeps watching, though, vaguely aware that he’s jealous of Obi-Wan’s affection, still, even after all of these years, and also that he’s confused by the sight of his Master in genuine communion with something that isn’t Jedi or soldier. At one point Obi-Wan reaches into a tunic pocket and offers Stitch a mangled protein bar (which is rejected, with a cacophony of disgusted snarling – so the Thing is intelligent, at least); at another, Stitch waves around a comical imitation of a blaster, all garish colors and loaded with neon slime that makes Obi-Wan laugh aloud.

As the sun starts to finally set and the troop and medevac transports finally start to make their way in to land, Stitch, as though sensing time is short, looks carefully around at Anakin, at Ahsoka, at Rex and Cody and all of the clones, and then wriggles around to whisper something garbled in Obi-Wan’s ear, something which makes the Jedi Master frown.

“I’m sorry, I don’t – ”

Stitch says the word again, something Anakin doesn’t understand, mostly vowels, and sticks a clawed hand into his garish shirt, his eyes going big and liquid and filling with an unbearably obvious sorrow. Anakin can’t see what’s on the piece of flimsi he pulls out, but whatever it is makes Obi-Wan’s shoulders relax and his expression soften.

“Ah,” he says gently. “Yes. Yes, Stitch, they are.”

“Good,” Stitch says firmly. Then he leaves a long, loving, slurpy lick up the side of Obi-Wan’s face, stuffs the flimsi back into his shirt, and disappears so fast Anakin almost misses it, scurries away in the direction he came, dodging nimbly around troopers’ startled feet until he vanishes into the darkness.

“Sorry, Snips,” Anakin says at the look of disappointment on Ahsoka’s face as he helps Obi-Wan to his feet. “Guess you’re not keeping it after all.”

“ _He_ ,” Obi-Wan says sternly, “is not for keeping.”

“Yeah, sure,” Anakin says, rolling his eyes as he settles one of Obi-Wan’s arms over his shoulders. “We should’ve taken him back to the Temple and set him loose in Yoda’s direction. Would’ve been fun.”

“Yoda wouldn’t have appreciated no longer being the oldest and wisest being in the room,” Obi-Wan murmurs cryptically, though he’s smiling as he says it. “Come on, Anakin,” he says then, his tone lightening as they approach the transport, where a similarly-battered Ki-Adi Mundi is waiting. “Home.”

He grips at Anakin’s arm a little tighter than usual before they say goodbye with glances and significant looks rather than words, as they always do; and Anakin finds himself wondering, as the ship lifts off and he’s left half-blinded by sand, whether something quite important had happened.

Who would have thought that a lesson on the depth of attachment would appear in the form of something quite so… blue?

*

**FIN**

*


	2. Finding Obi-Wan

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh man - okay, so when I first thought of the idea for this fic, the bit below is what I had intended to be the original ending. It didn't work out that way as I wrote it, so I just put the idea of it [in the tags of a tumblr post](http://commonplacecaz.tumblr.com/post/119383718396/title-burnin-love-fandoms-star-wars-lilo-and) and left it alone. But it wouldn't leave _me_ alone, so here it is. Apologies for the major woobie...

*

Stitch turns up on Tatooine when Obi-Wan has been out in the Jundland Wastes for three months. It is familiar, the mode of his arrival: the same boom of a distant crash and the smoke rising behind a dune, the same wary, curious waiting (with the Force whispering calm) until a six-legged creature suddenly scuttles into sight, barking, clad in bright flowers.

“O-Wah!” he coos, sounding so like Jar-Jar in his more genuine moments that Obi-Wan can only blink. He has been alone, so alone, since leaving Luke with Owen and Beru – Qui-Gon has not come, no one has made contact, no one has tried to find him and he would not want them to – that, briefly, as Stitch scurries up and plasters himself to Obi-Wan’s leg in an exuberant hug, he thinks he must have forgotten how to speak altogether.

“Hello, Stitch,” he croaks out eventually; his voice sounds better than he would have expected, disused but not broken. “Where have you come from?”

“Up,” Stitch says, pointing a claw into the pristine, heat-shimmering sky. “Busy. Bad men.”

He’s let go of Obi-Wan and is skittering towards the hut before Obi-Wan can formulate a reply. It’s nearly dusk, and the blue alien casts strange, hyperactive shadows on the sands as he walks; by the time Obi-Wan has turned and followed as far as the door, Stitch has poked and prodded his way through every corner of the little house, crawling under and over the leaning chairs, the more solid table, peering into Obi-Wan’s sleeping chamber, the ‘fresher, leaving chests and boxes open and scattered in his wake.

There isn’t much to make a mess out of, so Obi-Wan is not going to complain if said mess does occur, and just settles himself against the doorjamb to watch. It’s as if Stitch is searching for something, an instinct Obi-Wan can well understand, but for what, he can’t guess.

And then Stitch looks around, ears flicking in bewilderment, and his eyes rake Obi-Wan up and down, and he opens his wide mouth and says one word – “Ohana?”

Just like that, Obi-Wan _knows_ he can no longer speak.

He’s started shaking, he realizes, and somehow knowing this makes it easier; to acknowledge his distress makes him able to overcome it. “No,” he murmurs eventually. “No, Stitch. Ohana is gone.”

Stitch’s eyes go wide – his ears droop. " _All?_ "

“Yes. All of them.” Obi-Wan does not dare say their names, does not dare to even think them, for fear he will finally break. He has been trying very hard not to think of them for a long time.

He walks inside, heavily, aware that his legs will soon protest against holding him upright in the face of his confession, and sits in one of the chairs. Stitch stays staring out past him, out into the double-sunset, and seems to be thinking very hard about something or other.

“Ih,” the little monster says to itself, quietly, and then he’s turning around towards Obi-Wan, sand already settling in the folds of his still-ridiculous shirt. “I keep,” he says firmly, nodding just as strong. “Ohana here. Stitch take care of you.”

“Will you, now?” Obi-Wan says, feeling the ghost of a grin cross his face. Something sparks in his chest, something he’d thought irrevocably lost.

“Ih,” Stitch says again, and moves quickly to clamber up into Obi-Wan’s lap, butting his head up against Obi-Wan’s chin. “Little, and broken – but still good. _Always_ still good.”

Obi-Wan tightens his arms around the six legs, the warm blue pelt, and closes his eyes. “Thank you,” he breathes, unsure of what he even means by the words. The Force, which has hummed anxiously about him ever since Mustafar, sighs with something approaching relief.

 _Blue_ , Obi-Wan thinks vaguely, as Stitch clucks and they settle against each other, approximating sleep. _Who would have thought…?_

*


	3. Finding Cody

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this is absolutely NOT how I imagined I would first write this particular reunion, but hey - life is weird. Super duper weird, as it turns out. *G* Thanks to [AngelQueen](http://archiveofourown.org/users/AngelQueen/pseuds/AngelQueen) for the idea!

*

Three years after Order 66, Cody is on leave on Corellia, of all places, and taking quick advantage of the planet’s distilling industry, when the six-legged hell-raiser crawls under his table and starts to gnaw on his boots.

“Get off,” he says, and then, when a fair amount of kicking seems to do no good, he reaches wobbily between his legs (which, in hindsight, seems like a terrible idea) and drags the squirming, kicking blue Thing out into the bar’s dim light. “I said get _off_ – oh. It’s you.”

“Ih,” the Thing says happily, and, licking up what looks like a piece of melted armor off of the collar of its painfully floral shirt, promptly squirms out of Cody’s hand and into his lap. “Found you!”

“Oh, so you were looking,” Cody says sarcastically, unable to deny that somewhere in his head, a very Jedi-shaped headache has started up, one which is reminding him that the last time he saw this particular Thing it was in his General’s arms.

He’s managed to avoid one of _these_ headaches for the past six months. Maybe it’s his sixth glass of brandy – which the Thing (what was its name again – Stash? Stick?) has stuck its tongue into, and which instantly leads to a long moment of squirming, bugged-out eyes, and spit-flying gagging.

“ _Blech_. You _like_?”

“It usually does the trick, yeah,” Cody says, looking ruefully down at his now-ruined off-duty fatigues. “You wanna fuck off about now?”

“Nah,” the Thing says, looking up with a nasty-looking grin. “Found you. Take you back to O-wah. Make ohana!”

It looks Cody up and down, then, as something in Cody’s chest seizes up tight. “Gonna need a bigger bed,” It mutters.

“No idea what you’re talking about, Little Freak. I’m not going anywhere with you.”

“Ya,” It says, nodding again like it’s a certainty. “O-wah waiting.”

“I don’t know any O-wah.” It hurts to say it, it really fucking hurts, like something has come in from a blind spot and sideswiped him in the head.

“Stupidhead,” the Thing says, with a disgusted eye-roll, and then it’s rummaging around in its shirt, and a strange, battered little device falls out of it, along with a mess of flimsis. It rummages through them for a moment, muttering, while Cody blearily picks up the little box – he’s never heard of anything called a KODAK – and then a little blue hand is shoving one of the flimsis into Cody’s, and –

Obi-Wan looks well. Tired, maybe, and there’s grey at his temples, and deepening lines of sand, wind, and sun across his forehead. But he’s there, he’s fucking _alive_ , he’s standing on a dune and looking back at the Thing’s recording device with that same little expression of bemusement, the one that says _What are you doing_ and _For goodness’ sake_ and _Oh, all right then_.

“Whuh,” Cody says.

The Thing seems to take this as agreement, because before Cody can form any sort of coherent thought he’s being dragged, half-bent over so It can keep Cody’s hand in its paw, lurching through the bar towards the exit and the rows of speeders parked outside in the murky night.

“Wait – wait a minute,” Cody manages to babble, as he’s damn well bodily tossed into a strangely familiar, bright yellow ship which is barely big enough to hold two Things, let alone a full-grown near-human. “I can’t just – ”

The Thing looks around at him from the pilot’s seat, big eyes narrowed. “Why not?”

“Good question,” Cody mumbles, and then, mercifully, the brandy hits him where he lives, and he passes out.

When he wakes up, there is a desert planet huge in the viewport that Cody doesn’t recognize, and the Thing is chattering happily away to itself in a language also unknown. Cody stretches as far as he can, decides he doesn’t want to know how long he’s been asleep, and then just watches: watches as the Thing breaks into and then out of orbit with insouciant flicks of claws, brings them down over a vast, unending sea of desert, and then, unbelievably, in the shelter of a cluster of dunes and cliffs, a little house comes into view, lit brilliant white by the mid-afternoon suns.

The Thing jumps out as soon as they land, and rushes, barking, to the open doorway while Cody untangles himself a good deal more slowly, already coughing out dust and feeling sweat bursting out instantly onto his skin. Fuck, but he feels old. If he chooses this moment to die of a heart attack, it’ll probably be entirely in keeping with his recent luck.

“What is it, Stitch?” comes a pleasant, memory-obliterating voice, as the blue alien scuttles back to Cody’s side. “Don’t tell me you’ve crashed agai – ”

Cody has approximately two seconds’ sight of Obi-Wan’s eyes widening and staying there, fixed, before he finds himself up close and personal with a humming lightsaber and a bit less than six feet of possibly-ecstatic, possibly-petrified Jedi.

“Stitch,” Obi-Wan says, halfway strangled, not looking away from Cody from a moment. “When you said your ship had good tracking abilities I didn’t know _this was what you meant!_ ”

Cody spares a quick glance sideways – Stitch seems completely unperturbed by Obi-Wan’s tone, and is instead hauling a few more random objects out of the tiny hold of his ship. One of them appears to be a blue and pink parasol.

“Why are you here?” Obi-Wan asks, then, sounding ten different kinds of broken, and Cody drags his eyes back to where they belong.

“My chip’s been taken out,” he says, unsure what else he _could_ say. “If that’s what you’re worried about.”

“Oh,” Obi-Wan says vaguely. “Is that what it was?”

“Yeah.”

“That doesn’t make it any _easier!_ ”

Obi-Wan’s voice has risen into an uncharacteristic shout by that final word, and Cody gulps as he realizes that the lightsaber is close enough that he can feel the heat of it under his chin, and that the hand holding it has started trembling.

One of Stitch’s Objects can apparently play music. It’s playing it now, some sort of low, crooning throb about loving tender.

Obi-Wan looks to his side sharply, and Cody takes the chance to look that way again – Stitch, apparently without a care in the world, has stretched out on the sands under his parasol, and is looking at the both of them over a pair of dark glasses as though they are both very idiotic indeed.

“Well,” Obi-Wan demands. “Do you have anything to add to this conversation?”

Stitch shrugs and reaches behind him to turn a knob on his music player, which promptly cranks the strange song up to a scratchily-deafening level. “Is okay. Ohana not always perfect,” Stitch yawns over the din. “Fight sometimes.”

Cody looks back at Obi-Wan, more and more bewildered. “You just had to go and find yourself another fucking Yoda, sir?”

“Oh, gods,” Obi-Wan says, and throws the lightsaber hilt away from him; he’s wrapped himself around Cody’s chest before Cody can blink, and there’s sun-dried hair in the side of his neck.

“What did we do to you,” Obi-Wan says against his skin, muffled and distant. Cody is squeezing back so hard he thinks his arms might break, and knows that talking will happen later, but right now he just wants to stand still.

“Bigger bed,” Stitch sniggers, and Cody spares a hand for just a second to flash back a wordless, yet very inappropriate reply.

_Speak of the little blue devil…_

*


	4. Finding Jedi

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A few quieter moments of building Ohana on Tatooine, before Stitch goes a-collecting again....

*

It turns out that Stitch hadn’t actually been joking about the bed. The little blue alien prefers to sleep outside, himself, and the crooked bunk that takes up most of Obi-Wan’s bedroom is barely big enough for the Jedi, let alone a fully-grown clone.

Obi-Wan gives it to Cody anyway, of course, and is kind in his studious ignoring of the fact that Cody cannot take his eyes off him. Even after Obi-Wan falls asleep in his chair, fitfully, after most of an evening where all they felt safe doing was sharing a pot of tea, Cody still can’t stop watching, waiting for some telltale sign that this is real.

(He gets one, eventually, though he suddenly wishes he hadn’t needed it, as he’s reminded of just how his General looks in the aftermath of battle, when his body is asleep but his mind is still on the frontlines and quietly panting with it.)

Cody must fall asleep eventually, though, because suddenly he’s opening his eyes to find that it’s dawn, and freezing desert-cold, and Obi-Wan is gone.

“No worry,” Stitch says. He’s sitting upright in the open doorway, ears twitching, scratching at an itch on his head with one sharp claw. “He be back.”

“Where’d h’go?”

“Bigger bed, stupidhead.”

“Stop _calling_ me that,” Cody complains. He feels like he’s slept for a week, every muscle and joint screaming in protest as he rolls sideways and stumbles across the hard-packed floor.

Obi-Wan doesn’t come back that day, nor the next, and by the time two full cycles have passed Cody has given up on sleep entirely and decided that it would be much more productive for him to spend every waking hour scouring the hut and its technological environs for the tools he needs to build a homemade blaster and get to wherever the hell his General went.

Stitch remains totally unconcerned. In fact, early on the long second day, when the suns have risen just to the point where the sands start to shimmer and blaze with heat, he pulls Cody out onto a dune and, with his music player blasting a far more jaunty tune than the slow dirge of its first use, starts up a series of points, jumps, and slides which has Cody completely and utterly gobsmacked.

“Are you trying to teach me how to _dance?_ ”

“Gotta swing those hips, hound dog,” Stitch sniggers, grinning toothily.

It might be indescribable how much better Cody feels once he’s picked the little monster up and stuffed his head into a sand-filled crevasse. He has a sneaky suspicion that Stitch has let him do it on purpose, too.

It’s also on the second day that Cody realizes that they’re not alone.

He’d thought he’d been imagining it, at first – shadows when the sky was completely free of clouds, the soft clink of machinery being worked or tea being stirred. It takes him a while to ask Stitch about it, unnerved as he is, by that second night, by the eerie silence of the desert. Had Obi-Wan really endured this for three years?

“Uh, Stitch? Is there a ghost living here?”

“Not ghost,” Stitch says casually; he’s leafing through his flimsis for the umpteenth time, laying them out in patterns only he understands on Obi-Wan’s table. “Is just Kwy.”

“Kwy?”

“Kwy,” Stitch confirms, as though the matter is settled.

“Okay, I’ll bite. Who’s Kwy?”

Stitch gives him a look which is rapidly becoming very familiar. “Ohana, stupidhead.”

“Right. That makes so much sense. Forget I asked.”

It’s rare for clones to dream; always has been, and probably always will be, since they were never equipped with the right sort of synaptic connections and memory apparatuses needed to recall imaginative thoughts to mind. But Cody dreams that night – he dreams of a tall Jedi with long hair, with iron in his eyes and unending care in his hands, one who walks at Obi-Wan’s side down long canyons and across vast wastelands.

When he wakes up, still in the dark and disoriented, Stitch is tucked underneath his arm, one of his favorite flimsis in his paw – one of four humanoids under a tree, somewhere where the sun looks welcoming rather than brutal. They look happy.

“I’m glad you were here, Little Freak,” Cody murmurs, scratching the top of the blue head.

“Ohana important,” Stitch says, wriggling further into Cody’s side. “Lost, in the end. But always best to keep it when you can.”

“Man, do you even _hear_ yourself,” Cody mumbles, sliding back into sleep. “The old troll would _flip_.”

Stitch cackles. “Old troll _did_ ,” he says, and disappears into the night before Cody can think what to reply.

Obi-Wan returns in the mid-afternoon of the third day. He’s wearing enough ragtag tunics and protection against any driving sands that he could pass for a Tusken raider, linen wrapped around his arms, legs, and head, a blaster rifle on his back and his lightsaber nowhere to be seen. He comes dragging an anti-gravity sledge, one which is packed with boxes of provisions and spare parts for the evaporator and, to Cody’s surprise, all the tools they’ll need to build another bed.

“Told you,” Stitch says, and dodges nimbly out of the way of Cody’s only half-joking kick.

“I’m sorry,” Obi-Wan says as soon as he gets close enough, one sun-darkened hand reaching out to grab Cody’s shoulder. “I could feel your distress. I should have told you where I was going.”

“Yes, sir. You should’ve.”

Obi-Wan’s shoulders slump as he moves past, to the door. “It’s a few days’ walk. It wouldn’t have been safe to go together.”

“Who’s Kwy?”

“Qui?” Obi-Wan says, sounding genuinely surprised as he turns back, his hair disheveled from where he’s pulled off his gear, and Cody can tell from the way he says it that Cody himself has been mispronouncing it. Or rather, that Stitch has. “Qui-Gon’s been here?”

“Some _thing_ has been.”

“Oh, for – ” Obi-Wan smiles, tired cracks at the corners of his eyes, and then, for the first time in a very long time, Cody can feel it: he can feel what his Jedi always called the Force swirling around them all, as though the ground has come alive and the air is dancing.

Stitch is on his shoulder, cooing _pretty_ and _long time_ and several other words that aren’t in Basic, but all sound equally reverent, as the tall shadow turns solid.

“You’ve been alarming our guest, Master Jinn,” Obi-Wan says, a smirk on his lips as he drops his pack.

“I did not want to intrude.” Obi-Wan’s master’s voice is deep, and perhaps the most fitting Cody has ever heard when it comes to what a Jedi should _be_. “Stitch seemed to be doing a fine job.”

“Conspirators, the lot of you,” Obi-Wan grouses, and he sounds unreasonably happy about it as he holds out a hand to Cody.

“Come inside?” he asks quietly.

Cody knows they’re being watched – indeed, that Stitch is keeping up a running commentary whether the Force-Ghost responds or not – but once again, he finds that he doesn’t give a damn.

*


	5. Finding Rebels

*

Rex deserts eighteen months after the declaration of the Empire, and doesn't look back.

It doesn’t hurt at all, strangely, in the initial days. There wasn’t much worth missing. His men have been separated, splintered and suppressed; his command’s worth stripped away, his loyalties twisted, his purpose maligned and betrayed. He doesn’t miss his new world – it’s only when he allows himself the luxury of _regret_ , of reminding himself that he’d had more, once, and maybe he was free to chase it again, that it hits him hard and low in the gut, the fact of his _nothingness_.

After that, cycles pass where he isn’t quite sure where he is, or what he’s doing, since it all means so little. He considers becoming a bounty hunter, considers investing in Mandalorian armor (eventually rejecting it because no, he wouldn’t wear a helmet any longer, this is _his_ face and no one would take it from him again), hops a few freighters taking work as a deckhand and finds it numbing enough to get him from system to system without needing to think too hard about anything. It’s working, sort of. Enough.

Until he gets on a shit piece of junk bound for somewhere in Hutt Space, and as he’s walking down gloomy corridors under flickering lights he walks headfirst into a slender figure wrapped in a cloak, and the gasp of “Commander!” that floats out from under their hood makes his mind lurch sideways.

She’s grown up, their fierce little Kid. She’s beautiful, now, and willowy-tall, and doesn’t let go of his hands for hours as they whisper and huddle in her cabin, doesn’t wince or cry or let her lip wobble even once as he squeezes their clasped fingers white.

 _Rebellion_ , Ahsoka says, and something in his gut fires and sparks. _Alliance. Friends in high places. Come with me_.

He does, and loses track of time again for entirely different, wondrous, determined reasons, reasons like the little light of hope in teenagers’ eyes, and the quiet, enduring despair of any wandering Jedi who finds their way to their bases and disappears into darkened rooms to shake out their trauma and loneliness; like the pride in Ahsoka’s eyes, like the distant glimpse he gets, once, of Bail Organa boarding a transport from Alderaan to Corsucant and the deep lines of care and intelligence carved into their greatest benefactor’s face.

It’s been two years, suddenly, and he hasn’t had a blaster in his hands as often as he would like, but these were always going to be years of consolidation, of caution and worry and the slow creep of guaranteeing the safety of those whose hearts and minds had already turned – and he and Ahsoka are on Ando looking for recruits, and his teeth are on edge just from looking out of every window and seeing the oceanic world’s endless seas, because it reminds him far too much of Kamino, when he sees his own face across their bar of choice, and it’s all he can do to stare.

In profile, briefly, he thinks it’s another deserter, or perhaps even an off-duty officer, and his mind goes blank with the reflex he knows must come, to either draw his weapons or just grab Commander Tano and get the hell out. But then the clone turns, and Rex sees the scar, and he’s even more afraid, because of all the people in the galaxy, Cody is not the one he would expect to see here –

– and especially not looking so _happy_.

“What is it, Rex?” Ahsoka murmurs, eyes scanning the crowd; there is a brief swirl and eddy, and Cody seems gone, and Rex doesn’t trust himself to speak. “You’re in shock.”

“Nothing. Nothing, ma’am. Old memories.”

“Uh-huh,” Ahsoka says skeptically, double lightsabers swaying on her hips under her cloak as they make their way closer to the bar. She pauses, and then her hand lands on Rex’s arm. “It doesn’t have anything to do with _that,_ does it?” she asks then, faintly, as though she can hardly believe her eyes.

Which is when Rex realizes that there’s a six-legged blue _Thing_ doing a kriffing _circus act_ on the bartop, and everything has gotten a whole lot more complicated.

“Hey, brother,” comes a murmur at Rex’s shoulder, and Ahsoka’s eyes open up wide as the Thing, chattering happily, accepts the raucous tips of the crowd for the impressive act of doing a back-flip over a three-foot stack of cups. “It’s been a while.”

Cody doesn’t look perturbed in the least by suddenly having the barrel of Rex’s blaster under his chin; in fact, he looks positively bored by its potential. “Rex,” he says conversationally, then nods to Ahsoka. “Commander. It’s good to see you both safe.”

There’s only one circumstance under which Rex has known any of his fellow clones to look _this_ fucking relaxed, and frankly, if what he thinks is the case is indeed the case, he’s kriffing jealous as all Sith hells.

“Okay,” he says bluntly, pushing the business end of the blaster into Cody’s barrel chest instead. “Who’s your bit on the side? ‘Cause I mean for _fuck’s_ sake – ”

Cody just laughs, a quiet, steady, painfully familiar sound, and then gathers each of them up in an arm and holds them close. It takes most of what Rex has left, of what he’s held in reserve for himself alone in all of these months of running and working and running some more, not to cling to him as though Cody were his imaginary clone-mother, that abstract concept they’d all had of some moment of birth, of the sudden press of consciousness and life and even a sort of twisted love.

“I can’t stay,” Cody says into their ears, and then there’s a scuttling noise around their feet, and something climbs Rex like he’s a fucking tree, all sharp claws and big wet eyes and a pungent saliva he remembers all too well from when his fucking head was completely drowned in it, so long ago, on a godsforsaken Genosis battlefield.

“Oooh,” the Thing says, looking back and forth excitedly between Cody and Rex. “Ohana, found it! More ohana!” He grabs hold of Ahsoka’s hand, grinning at her toothily. “Bring with us!”

“No,” Ahsoka says, and there is a telltale wetness in the corners of her eyes as the Thing’s ears droop and it looks, thunderstruck, at Cody for some sort of explanation.

“She’s right, Stitch,” Cody says soothingly, and Rex can’t quite seem to grasp the threads of this conversation, and why it’s so important – every time he tries, his thoughts flee and scatter, still processing the unbelievability of where he is and with whom. “They have work to do. We can’t take them away from that.”

Stitch babbles something that isn’t in Basic, and scrabbles his way into Ahsoka’s arms, whispering quickly into her ears. Cody turns to Rex, then, and takes hold of him by the elbows, and just like that, the rest of the shithole that is the galaxy falls away.

“If you need it, the General and I have a place,” Cody says, his words falling into this silent, empty place. He smiles, then, and Rex finds himself reaching out as though to grasp at his expression, wishing for his own sake that he were standing before a mirror. “Stay safe, Rex.”

Ahsoka gasps at something Stitch has told her – or shown her, because there’s a dirty little flimsy in his paw, and the young Togruta looks as though she might fall over any moment, and it’s over. The moment has passed, and the hands so like Rex’s own have left his arms, and Cody, with a little blue bundle of wriggling, smiling fur on his shoulder, turns away and vanishes so suddenly into the smoky, seething mass of bar clientele that, for a minute or so, Rex wonders if he’s been the victim of some sort of mass hallucination.

“We’re going to win this war,” Ahsoka says, and when he looks back at her her eyes are clear, and her spine is straight, and Rex finds himself remembering a little girl with all the fire in the universe in her stance, and a defiance so deep even the Empire hasn’t been able to tamp it out. “And after that, we’re going to go home.”

“Where’s home, then?” he asks, somehow finding his voice.

Her smile is brilliant, hope itself. “Tatooine. General Kenobi is waiting for us.”

Rex looks in the direction Cody has disappeared, back at Ahsoka, and back at the crowd again.

“That cheeky bastard,” he chokes out. “ _He_ won the betting pool?”

“What betting pool?”

“You,” Rex says, gathering Ahsoka into a hug and telling himself that no, he is _not_ going to cry, he is a fully-grown-and-then-some man, for gods’ sake – “are _never_ going to be old enough to know that.”

 _Stay safe, Brother_ , he thinks, and decides that he really, really wants (needs) a drink.

Something blue might be just the thing to celebrate this occasion.

*

**TBC**

*


	6. Finding Alderaan

*

Five years after the declaration of Empire, Senator Bail Organa feels the need to take a month’s leave from the Senate and return to Alderaan, and so he does.

He has found it strange from the start – the curious ease with which he is allowed to do what he wills with his person, but not with his mind. To take a holiday is something encouraged by the Emperor himself, in his insidious smiles and solicitations; the Senator from Alderaan looks tired, the Senator from Alderaan has been working too hard, I am sure we can spare the Senator from Alderaan. Bail knows, conversely, that his absence will be sorely regretted, for, ironically, on Coruscant it is a much simpler task to move resources, funds and people to his own advantage and that of the Alliance, lost among the chaos of political and social obligation; on Alderaan, he is likely to be far more closely watched by obvious and not-so-obvious agents.

It is as well, then, that this is due to be a real holiday. He has felt thin and stretched-out for the better part of a year, now; he misses Breha, he misses Leia, he misses the opportunity, so rare, to enjoy a period of luxury and peace without worrying about its imminent destruction, possibly at his own hands.

So Bail Organa goes home to Alderaan, and, when he arrives, unannounced, in the very early hours of the morning as the sun is just starting to turn the sky pink and gold, he finds his daughter playing in the palace gardens with a very unusual new friend.

“No, silly,” Leia scoffs, familiarly, her little hands planted on her hips, hair flying out of her braids as she shakes her head vigorously. “ _Not_ like _that!_ ”

“Cow-a-bunga!”

A malformed blue – _blue?_ – shape careens through the air and lands in a nearby ornamental fountain, and Leia shrieks with outraged delight as she is splashed from head to foot, her white robes soaked through.

Bail decides to step in a few moments later, right about when Leia is halfway into the fountain herself, presumably to pummel the unknown alien to death. “Careful, you,” he admonishes fondly, swinging her up with his hands under her armpits and wiping wet hair out of her face once she is balanced on his hip. “Gods, you’re getting heavy.”

“Not as heavy as you,” his fiery girl instantly retorts; she can’t keep up her displeasure for long, however, and buries her nose in the side of his neck, wrapping them both up in sodden cloth.

“Oo-oh,” says the same squeaky voice, and Bail looks down out of the circle of Leia’s arms to find the alien – right then, six legs, very blue indeed, apparently speaks Basic, none of these things are ringing much of a bell in the deep and detailed galactic lexicon in his mind – staring gleefully up at them, grinning with teeth both long and sharp.

It babbles something definitely _not_ in Basic, then, and Leia tuts loudly. “Elvis Stitch III, you are so rude,” she sniffs. “This is my father. He’s very important.”

The creature wrinkles its nose and makes a sucking sound between its teeth. “Feh.”

“Hey!”

“Now, now,” Bail soothes, crouching down so they’re all on a level to speak to each other; the Thing doesn’t seem dangerous, after all, and he will never begrudge Leia an all-too-rare playmate. “I’m sure he didn’t mean any harm.”

“No,” Stitch agrees, and then he sticks a hand into his tunic – a garish, multi-colored thing which would send the Alderaanian court all a-titter – and pulls out a piece of damp flimsy which he shoves into Bail’s free hand. “Message!”

“For me?”

“Who’s it from, Father?” Leia asks, her annoyance quickly forgotten.

Bail reads the two handwritten lines – coded, it takes him a moment – and catches his breath.

He looks back at Stitch, wondering. “You’ve come a long way,” he says slowly.

“Ih,” Stitch says, scratching behind one of his ears with a couple of his claws as though he has not a care in the world. “Message back?”

“I doubt you’ll need me to write it down,” Bail says, and at Stitch’s shrug, he considers for a long moment, unconsciously pulling Leia in closer to him; it is a chilly morning, after all, and she is wet, and they are both about to shiver. “Tell him – tell him I’m glad that he’s well. And that he’s not alone.”

“Yah,” Stitch says, his expression brightening. “Ohana good. Finding more alla time. _You_ have lots.”

“I do,” Bail says honestly, though in fact, he’s not entirely sure what has just been said; the sentiment, however, rings true. “Thank you.”

“Fa-a-ther-r-r,” Leia complains, shoving at his shoulder. “Who’s the message from?”

“A very brave man, my dear,” he says, kissing her on the temple. “One day, maybe, I’ll tell you about him.”

“You’d better,” she menaces.

“Ma’am, yes ma’am.”

“Bail?”

It is Breha’s voice, not too distant, hopeful. Leia flings herself out of Bail’s arms immediately, her damp shoes squishing with every step as she rushes up the path, scattering water drops in her wake.

“Mother! Mother! I found an alien and his name is Stitch and he sings the _strangest_ songs – ”

Bail watches her go, watches her run towards the silhouette in the palace doorway which makes his heart quieten and every one of his thoughts turn towards home. When he looks back, distractedly, the garden is empty; there are only blue and yellow flowers in bloom, turning their faces towards the sun.

*


	7. Finding Vader

*

Two cycles into its first tour of duty, Darth Vader’s new flagship Star Destroyer, the _Indomitable_ , begins to malfunction. Quietly, at first, with switches suddenly fusing or various small systems breaking down as though a virus has left glitches in their workings; soon, though, one of the backup engines fails, and after that, there are two power couplings which mysteriously short out, insulation ducts torn open.

Vader doesn’t care much for the two crew members who disappear along with the latest round of destruction. He does care, on the other hand, that his long-range scanners have apparently been knocked out from within, and that his useless, witless commanders haven’t been able to flush out the saboteurs.

Killing them does nothing to repair his mood, such as it is, and so he retreats to his pod, breathes in filthily clean, filtered air, and sends his mind rushing through the bowels of the ship to find and cure its ailment. It speaks to him, this ship; it speaks to him of power, of order, of a mechanical certainty which he finds gratifying. He will _not_ have it be subject to the whims of mere mortals.

He will not let it break.

What he finds is – unexpected. It is a presence known to him, but dimly, as though through a deep and thickening mist through which, he knows, is a foreign country that he left behind long ago.

Vader flexes his durasteel hands, ponders, and breathes.

It is a simple enough act, in the end, to seal off the deck where the creature in question is hiding itself; Vader ventures down there alone in the wake of his frightened, skittering underlings, in darkness, allowing his cybernetics to show him the way, readouts whirring in front of his eyes. He stops, finally, in a long corridor, at the end of which, his electronic ears tell him, something is lurking, small claws scrabbling assuredly on metal.

“Hello, Stupidhead,” the Thing says, nastily.

“So,” Vader says slowly. “It _is_ you.” He thinks of Geonosis, of cloying clouds of red sand and dust, and takes comfort from them – they hide him from his memories as surely as he wants to be hidden.

“Yah,” the thing says, and then it laughs, maniacally, sound bouncing crazily off of walls and ceiling until it frazzles its way through Vader’s helmet, teeth glowing luminescent in the gloom.

“You’ve been damaging my ship.”

“Ugly ship,” the Creature says, and spits. “Does bad things.”

“That is rather the idea.”

“Bad idea,” It hisses, and then it barrels forward. Vader lets it come on without flinching; it bites speculatively at one of his legs, and, finding only metal, snarls and starts to climb.

It is so simple to grab it by the neck; to hold it away from him like the squirming, kicking little ball of insignificance it is, and deliberate calmly on its fate.

“Why did you come here?”

“Message,” it cackles, eyes gleaming. “Ohana coming for you. Small green troll. Red-haired man.”

Something deep in Vader’s chest, something he’d thought long since dormant, lurches sideways and aches. Somewhere, nerve-endings supposedly burned to a crisp are telling the chips that keep his brain alive that his body is experiencing pain.

“I will crush them when they come,” he intones, tightening his grip; the Creature’s eyes bulge. “They _know_ that.”

“Maybe,” the Creature says, and then it bites downward, and something in the metalworking of Vader’s hand must give way and shatter into uselessness beneath its teeth; his fingers open, the Creature falls, careens, scuttles, as, far away, Vader hears and feels something explode, and the corridor lurches suddenly sideways.

“Big engine,” the Creature hisses. “Big boom.”

“Why, you – ” Even with the Force and the Dark at his disposal, it is proving hard for Vader to keep himself upright as the _Indomitable_ cripples herself, lists, and tosses. “You – _abomination!_ ”

The Creature pauses, its shadow looks back; it has one fist raised, halfway through the act of punching a hole through the hull. When it speaks, it sounds sorrowful, as though all its work, and the destruction of the Empire’s finest fighting ship, has all been for naught.

“Stupidhead,” it sighs.

It is stronger than it looks; it only takes one blow of its clenched paw to indeed blow a ragged hole in the hull of the ship, and It is sucked instantly out into space. Vader holds on, grimly, feeling the void tear at his cloak; within moments, the emergency systems of the deck (thank goodness _something_ still works) have sealed the breach, and he is alone once more, the silence rushed to be filled by blaring sirens and panicked requests for his presence over the ship’s intercoms; the corridor is ablaze with the winking and flaring of deep, blood-red lights.

Darth Vader clenches his fists, and consigns one more hated memory of the color blue to oblivion.

*

**TBC**

*


	8. Finding Hope

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _I feel like I should apologize for not making it clear sooner that this wouldn’t be a ‘fix-it’ fic. In fact, um – this is the ending, and it sucks, and I’m not sure this is crack anymore, or if it ever was. BUT I gotta say – the reaction to this has been frickin’ amazing, and even if I break your hearts I thank you all so much for enjoying it. And I apologize in advance for very possibly fucking up the Hawaiian phrase I tried to insert._

*

Stitch makes three more visits to Alderaan, in the years that follow. He makes a lei for Lei-ah and leaves it for the Feh-nahtor; he seems to know just what to do it, because the next time Stitch scuttles through the palace to leave a message from O-wah, he catches sight of a twelve-year-old firecracker girl with flowers woven into her elaborate hair, blue and yellow and red.

O-wah takes Stitch with him on long walks, due east, trudging wearily up and down dunes while Stitch races on ahead (‘Always take sunscreen,’ someone had once told him, but on Tatooine it seemed more normal to just let yourself fry and wither. Stupid humans). Settling, finally, with a sigh on a small clifftop, O-wah keeps vigil over a distance farm, throbbing with the Magic he always uses, until something in his expression clears; Stitch peeks over the clifftop, hears a boy below as he pilots a ramshackle speeder, whooping and shouting with glee. Then O-wah gets up, and they walk back home again.

When The Girl with the Lei is fifteen, Stitch takes his spaceship and goes to help Ah-so blow up an Imperial base. She’s grown thin, and tired, but she hugs Stitch to her fiercely nonetheless, and when he gambols and screeches and cackles when the base blows up her smile is grim with satisfaction.

“Stitch?” she says, when they are due to part; he knows it’s not a good idea for him to go directly back to the Rebel fleet, after all, given that he has other places to be. “Rex got too old.”

Stitch stares. “Whowha?”

Ah-so shrugs, helplessly, arms folded across her chest. “He wasn’t meant to be old. None of them were.”

When Stitch gets back to Tatooine, Codie is asleep, fitfully, as though sick (he has grown tough and brittle at once, these past few years), and O-wah is sitting awake, watching him toss and turn.

“I’m sorry,” O-wah says faintly, and Stitch looks at him curiously, ears drooping. “It can’t be easy for you, my dear. So many lost.”

“Yah,” Stitch says gently, and wanders outside to sit under the three moons with the ghostly shape of Kwy not far off, so that O-wah doesn’t have to say any more.

When Codie passes O-wah is holding his hand, and Stitch is curled up at his feet, the ever-faithful guardian. He takes hours to scratch out a paltry grave in the desert; wrapped in linens, Codie disappears into the sands.

Stitch watches O-wah sit cross-legged by the little pile of dislodged earth until he can’t stand it anymore and clambers up into his master’s lap, wriggles under trembling hands, butts his head up into a bearded chin peppering white.

“Won’t leave you,” he says fiercely. “Won’t. _Won’t_.”

“How dearly I wish I could say the same to you,” O-wah murmurs, and falls asleep like that, fingers knotted into Stitch’s fur, slumped forward into the earth.

Nearly five years later, Stitch has perfected the art of grilling bantha meat, and O-wah goes for a walk and comes back with a leggy young man who’s complaining vociferously about Sand People. He’s clearly a new Stupidhead – you gotta stay on the good side of the Sand People. (‘Cause they make the _best_ krayt burgers.)

“What is _that?_ ” the young man gawks, pointing at Stitch, who sticks out his tongue in response.

“Oh, him? Just my dog,” O-wah says, winking mischievously at Stitch from behind the boy’s back.

“It’s very – blue,” Luke says nervously, and O-wah laughs aloud.

Halfway to Alderaan, Stitch is lazily beating Chewie at sabaac for the tenth time (there’s been a lot of bared teeth and growling involved) when O-wah staggers, and Stitch leaps off of his chair, noses him into sitting, scrambles up and stares right into his eyes.

“Feh-nator?” he asks, and, when O-wah nods, lets out a little keen.

“Maybe Anakin was right,” O-wah says, weakly, struggling for breath, putting a hand on Stitch’s head. “The Force chooses the vessels you least expect…”

They arrive on the Death Star (stupid name), and when Stitch tries to rush along at O-wah’s side out of the control room, O-wah stops first Luke – and then, kneeling down, stops Stitch.

“Pono ohana ‘ia ‘oe,” he murmurs, and Stitch’s eyes open wide.*

Slightly mangled, but it’ll do.

“Ih,” he says, and turns back to where Luke and Han are struggling with the computers as O-wah closes the door behind him.

The Girl with the Lei has been hurt. She’s exhausted. When she sees Stitch at Luke’s side, her mouth drops open.

“No,” she breathes. “You were _real?_ ”

She’s also pretty handy with a blaster, and so is the Idiot Solo, which is good, because Stitch needs all the backup he can get. He can kill the monster in the trash chute – it tastes _disgusting_ – but he can’t make the walls stop for very long, despite all his super-strength, so it’s a good thing Luke isn’t also a Stupidhead and knows how to – eventually – get them out.

“Ben?” Luke says, and stands amazed.

It’s been a long time since Stitch has seen the lightsaber lit. _Oooh_ , he thinks. _Pretty_.

O-wah looks over at both of them; at the Stupidhead Vader, and back at Stitch again.

His smile is so familiar that it makes Stitch’s heart ache. He’s seen it before, on old men and women turning their faces towards a faraway sun rising over the ocean, their hands buried in piles of photo albums, greeting their last dawn.

 _Stitch!_ comes the distant, urgent call, when there is nothing left on the floor but an empty cloak. Stitch grabs Luke’s leg between his teeth and pulls – when that doesn’t work, he snarls, runs up Luke’s back, puts claws into his hair and yanks until the boy is running, lurching up the _Falcon’s_ ramp, crumpling to the cockpit deck in The Girl with the Lei’s arms as Chewie and the Idiot Solo hurl themselves into their seats.

 _Thank you_ , O-wah says, softly, already fading.

Stitch looks at his new ohana – the Girl with the Lei, the Space Idiot, and the Boy from the Desert – and decides, once again, to stay.

His love, after all, still burns brighter than a star.

*

**FIN**

*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _*Ohana needs you._


End file.
